Insight:

Growth in the Industrial Age was difficult, as it required physical
infrastructure to build anything. Now, we can build digital
infrastructure, and test effectiveness by running low cost, low risk
experiments, then scaling.

Industry Impact:

Consulting will be a major component of Bookkeepers and Accountants
that thrive, and advising on new ventures will need to be managed by
using experiments to prove success before scaling.

Overview

All we need is an internet connection and we can become relative
experts in almost anything, without needing to formally study the
topic. The most esteemed Ivy League Colleges have courses available
online, some for free.

For all knowledge which is not contained in a university curriculum,
podcast or YouTube video, you need to learn by doing, testing and
trying for yourself.

The Industrial Revolution was built with steel and concrete, so to
roll out experiments at scale was not very feasible. Thankfully,
digital tools have given us the ability to be truly agile. We can
design, build, and implement at a fraction of the risk and cost.
Testing ideas and measuring the results has never been easier.

Adopting an experimental strategy is a great way to grow yours and
your clients’ business, and become an expert in the opportunities that
the Digital Revolution is bringing.

The concept of an experiment is well understood from school science
class. When you look at experimentation through a business lens, the
same principles apply.

Astro Teller, Chief of Moonshots at Google, explains that the
following three business principles describe a good experiment:

1. Any experiment where you already
know the outcome is a BAD experiment.

2. Any experiment
when the outcome will not change what you are doing is also a BAD
experiment.

3. Everything else (especially where the input
and output are quantifiable) is a GOOD experiment.

Tech companies have shown us what is possible when you adopt an
iterative cycle of test, learn, scale. The ‘Lean Startup’ has become a
business section classic for outlining the agile business model, where
everything is ‘bootstrapped’ with minimal spend in time and money
upfront. It is based on creating a feature, testing it with a small
group of real customers, listening to their feedback, and adjusting.
Once you have iterated enough to discover ‘product-market-fit’, you
then invest and scale, with a level of assurance that you will see a
happy customer and an ROI.

"Our success at Amazon is a function of how many experiments we do per year, per month, per week, per day…"

- Jeff Bezos

Factors

Democratisation of education

Before industrialisation, we learned
directly from the experts. We would learn to farm by watching our
parents harvest, learn to bake by being an apprentice at the bakery,
and learn to speak a language by moving to the region where it was
spoken. Industrialisation then created a new framework where we now
learn via a mediator, otherwise known as a teacher, who shares the
curriculum via books written by the experts. But, there is another
shift happening. The internet has given us unprecedented access to be
able to learn anything directly from the source again. Whether it is
via YouTube videos, or MIT courses online, you can learn literally
anything you want, on your terms, at little or no cost.

The New Knowledge

Now there is such an abundance of
information on the web, the new skill is not understanding all of the
information out there, it is knowing how to navigate it. It has the
potential to change how we use our brains; shifting from memory
storage of information, to memory storage of the sources of information.

Digitisation of Infrastructure

The ‘Lean Startup’ has become a modern
classic in the business section. It talks of the constant iterative
cycles of small experiments that pass or fail based on how real
customers react to them. The main point of this is that significantly
less investment is required compared to industrial growth models.
Anything is possible - if you want to know whether people will like
your products, you can launch a global shop front in an hour. Imagine
the costs of doing that in that days of bricks and mortar - it would
take months, or even years.

Instant and accurate feedback loop

Analytics were once always
‘approximate’. Then digital gave us laser-sharp numbers on who, how,
when and where people engage with our digital platforms. It has
allowed us to create an instant feedback loop on whatever experiments
we are conducting. If you want to test whether Japanese Elvis
impersonators prefer white or dark chocolate, you can find out within
an hour.

Moving forward

Tess has a range of clients, in multiple verticals, all with
different business models, and all in the midst of different growth trajectories.

One she is particularly passionate about is Brightspark.

Brightspark promises to find someone to teach anyone, anything,
anywhere. The scope for what they teach is constantly changing. In
2018, AI was the most popular topic, by 2020, Blockchain Developers
were the hottest thing.

Tess’s parents were both teachers at her local primary school, which
back then, looked very different. It used to be a case of all children
learning the same thing consecutively, and following a specific
direction from their teacher. Now it is much more fluid. The role of
AI has

given children the ability to be naturally drawn to things they
choose to discover more about. The teacher guides them down their own
path as they move through their schooling years. Virtual Reality
allows children to be immersed in the African Savanna to watch bison
migrate, or travel to the Kennedy Space Centre to look inside the
engines of Space X’s shuttles that go to Mars.

Brightspark work closely with Tess to make sure they are always on
the frontline of the latest content and technology. To manage that,
Tess organises constant experiments, inspired by insight from their
data feeds.

“Hello Team Brightspark!” Says Tess as all the faces appear in the
video conference window. There is a mix of Brightspark management,
developers and teachers all tuning in for the experiment workshop.

“Thank you for joining in from wherever you are. Marcus, how about
that snow in Berlin ? I saw the footage this morning on my drive into
work, it looks insane!?”

Marcus’s face takes over the display and he responds. “It has
probably gotten worse this morning, Tess. I wish I was in Melbourne
with you. There was a Virgin Galactic deal on to rocket into Cape Town
for 24 hours. I was very tempted, it was only 500 coins”.

“I don’t envy you one bit, mate. Let’s get into it, there is so much
to cover. Speaking of rockets Marcus, we have seen a big spike in
searches for learning about Aerospace Engineering. It is clearly the
hot topic for younger generation coming out of school, with 100
million views of the Space X Academy video in its first week. That
coupled with the billions of coins spent in acquiring engineering
companies, this is proving to be a huge industry over the next decade.
I think we need to setup a pilot program - excuse the pun - to start
testing Aerospace Engineering courses. Do we all approve ? ”Tess looks
up at the display to see a green dot appear next to each participant
in the conference.

“OK, great - that was easy. Other popular topics for learning
include Genetic Beauty Treatments and it’s great to see here Marine
Biology is making a comeback. Goodness me, I remember having
aspirations of being one when I was in primary school!”

After agreeing to the topics, the Brightspark team build up
experiments that will let the users decide which courses they like. If
it hits the ‘target’ of 1000 enrolments, that topic is then invested
in with media budget to find and recruit the best teachers. If the
numbers continue to go up, so does the investment. This ensures
Brightspark are growing their company only when the customers prove
they will buy it, eliminating any risk.

To conclude the workshop, Tess’s AI, Jay, puts an interesting data
point on the table. There is a huge concentration of active users in
Mexico City, one of the world’s megacities with a population of 40
million people, using Brightspark.

This market is so dense with users and so large in size that it
warranted trying something bigger than just ‘online’. They all agree
there is an opportunity to experiment and grow the services of
Brightspark in Mexico City.

Tess suggests an experiment where they could test the appetite for
an actual ‘bricks-and-mortar’ university in Mexico City. Brightspark
could create a physical campus with the latest technologies, where
people could come and learn in an inspiring, owned environment.

“Let’s set up a website, and ask for enrolments. If we hit 10, 000
enrolments for on-campus learning in our classes in the first 7 days,
we have a business case we can take to the board”. They set up a
website asking for EOIs, and within two hours, they have several
hundred applicants.

When the proposal was taken to the board, it was approved before the
team had even finished the presentation.

Tactics

Understand experiments and prototypes, read
SPRINT
by Jake Knapp, Google Venture’s Sprint Process about the how,
when and with whom you should run an experiment.

Go to FinTech
meetups, and meet Founders who are looking for a Beta community.
Meet the actual technologists to create knowledge overlap, new ideas
and possibilities.

Carve out an experimentation budget - both
financial and time-based. R&D is no longer just the realm of
large corporates.

Allow staff experimental time. Google
famously gave engineers 20% time for passion projects. This resulted
in Google Maps & Gmail. Time given to staff weekly or monthly
could result in new efficiencies and revenue. Encourage clients to as well.

Host a Hackathon: this is a brilliant guide
to hosting your own rapid prototyping session, and can garner high
value IP, for a very little investment, and generate media
attention.. https://hackathon.guide/